Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete speaks to Rev Christopher Mtikila at an event in Dar es Salaam
After hosting former premier Faustin Twagiramungu, then the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) the Tanzania’s elite establishment has linked up the FDLR rebels with convicts of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) including ex-army commander Brig Gen Gratien Kabiligi.
News of Rwanda has obtained more intriguing details of different meetings hosted in Dar es Salaam involving the Democratic forces for the liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a militia group based in DR Congo with their former commanders in Europe and Tanzania. The meetings are not hosted by the State of Tanzania, but a network of political elites with vested interests in the FDLR.
While Faustin Twagiramungu had left Tanzania for Lyon, France on the 23rd January, two FDLR senior leaders were in Dar es Salaam and stayed there during the days which followed. As News of Rwanda has reported before, the men who were in Tanzania are FDLR executive secretary Lt Col Wilson Irategeka and Col Hamadi, the operations commander.
Our investigations team is yet to find out when Brig Gen Gratien Kabiligi arrived in Tanzania, but have established that he had meetings at secret locations in Dar es Salaam with the above FDLR commanders. The meetings took place on Friday 24th January, then Saturday and the days of the following week.
God’s man of carnage
Brig Gen Kabiligi was arrested in 1997 and his trial before the ICTR started in 2002. He was acquitted on December 18, 2008 by the controversial judge Theodor Meron who has been accused of deliberately releasing genocide suspects at ICTR and ICTY. Since then, Kabiligi lived in a safe house in Arusha, Tanzania, waiting for resettlement in another country. He eventually did however get allowed in by France.
The meetings between Kabiligi and the FDLR men were brokered, planned and hosted by Reverend Christophe Mtikila with the full blessing of the Tanzanian elite establishment. Brig Gen Kabiligi was the Chief of Military Operations within the High Command of the ex-Rwandan army which metamorphosised into the current FDLR.
Reverend Mtikila is no stranger to Rwandan affairs. He is a vocal Tanzanian evangelist-politician who has hosted FDLR commanders on several occasions. Rev Mtikila is the Chairman of Democratic Party (DP), a small political grouping with representation in parliament. News of Rwanda has established that he is the figure who facilitates the acquisition of Tanzanian passports for FDLR commanders to travel out of DR Congo jungles.
Major opposition parties have charged that the virulently vocal Mtikila is used by the ruling elite to disorganize them. (News of Rwanda is preparing a separate investigation about Rev Mtikila’s network that has been hosting and facilitating FDLR and genocide suspects on the run).
ICTR convicts in Tanzania safe houses
These latest meetings are not isolated events, according to our investigation. The Tanzanian ruling elite has provided new homes with full police protection at the expense of the Tanzanian taxpayer, to about 6 Rwandan men who slaughtered Tutsis back home. What the ordinary Tanzanians have not been told is that all countries have declared these men persona non grata.
The man include: Andre Ntagerura, a member of the Interim government in 1994, as well as Justin Mugenzi and Prosper Mugiraneza – who were all ministers in the brief government which rolled out the genocide against Tutsis across the country as they themselves fled to Zaire.
The other men who have been provided safe houses by the Tanzanian ruling elite are Andre Rwamakuba, a minister in the same government, as well as Casmir Bizimungu and Jerome Bicamumpaka.
All these men were controversially acquitted by the ICTR at different times. As show of displeasure with the acquittals, the men have asked for visa from different countries, but have all been turned down. They are now famously known as the “unwanted” in the news media.
Who is Brig Gen Gratien Kabiligi?
Before the full-scale genocide against Tutsis was launched across the Rwanda, Brig Gen Gratien Kabiligi was the commanding general of military operations of the entire army. Units in Kigali and across all the hills of Rwanda, as well as the elite commandos were under his direct command. Kabiligi worked with Col Theoneste Bagosora, the man convicted and branded by the ICTR as the “brand of the genocide”.
Kabiligi had actual knowledge of the security situation in the whole country from weekly meetings which he attended, with convicted Aloys Ntabakuze, the para-military commander. As stated in the indictment, both Gratien Kabiligi and Aloys Ntabakuze described Tutsis as “the enemy”.
Kabiligi was given constant briefings by Aloys Ntabakuze whenever he ordered his units to reinforce units of the Presidential Guard involved in the systematic elimination of the main leaders of the political opposition and prominent figures of the Tutsi population. Among men who reported to Kabiligi is Maj Protais Mpiranya, who is yet to be apprehended.
On 28 January 1994, Kabiligi and André Ntagerura arrived by helicopter in Bugarama sector, Cyangugu prefecture and with Emmanuel Bagambiki distributed weapons to 2 000 Interahamwe militia at a rally held on a football field. In a speech, Kabiligi encouraged the youth to be vigilant and to fight “the enemy”, whom he identified as the Tutsis, wherever they were found. Many of such operations would happen over the coming months to different interahamwe training camps.
At a meeting held at Ruhengeri Military Camp on 15 February 1994 chaired by Gen Kabiligi, the high command set final touches to a plan to massacre Tutsis. Kabiligi ordered that each sector’s commander should organise clandestine commando operations. When speaking about killings of “the enemy”, Kabiligi used the French term “déraciner” (uproot). Many such meetings were held before and next months.
As the Arusha peace deal was being discussed, Gen kabiligi was preparing for war. In the recorded high command meetings, Kabiligi ordered all army units to “understand the situation and assume their responsibilities”. Kabiligi categorically ordered the units to be ready for war to resume resume on 23 February.